Posts Tagged ‘The International 2014’

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Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.

Dota, League of Legends, Smite – these are complex games to get your head around and thus a good first impression is key.

Until this point the introductions tended to come via excited friends. People who popped up online or at the pub to announce, “Hey, I’ve found this awesome game which I think you’ll love and which we can play together. Won’t that be great?”

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By my watch, the main event of Valve’s $10 million Dota 2 tournament The International kicks off oooooh right about now in front of a sold-out crowd in Seattle. Gabe Newell will take to the stage and someone will yell out something trite about Half-Life 3. You should watch it. Not just because I think Dota 2’s one of the finest video games, but to see Valve’s pageantry. Big-money digital sport competitions in arenas will be A Thing for quite some time, it seems, and The International so far has put on the best show. With decent presenters, a solid between-game show, different ways to watch, and a general hum of excitement, it’s the event other games should be cribbing from.

Look, if you play Dota 2 you probably already know this stuff, but I’ll explain for everyone else.

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The full pageantry of Valve’s whopping great Dota 2 tournament The International won’t kick off in Seattle until Friday, but already it’s seen a few upsets. Seven days of playoffs ended last night, whittling nineteen teams down to eight–with last year’s champions, Alliance, notably knocked out.

We haven’t seen all the fun and dressing Valve plan to fill the 17,000-capacity KeyArena with as teams fight over a $10 million prize pool, but we have got a fair look at how they’re trying to welcome newcomers, not to mention the state of the game. It’s a bit mixed, really.

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“Furion’s playing rat doto” – four words full of meaning to the well-informed Dota 2 player but to most people, half of those aren’t even words.

Valve’s Dota 2 tournament The International later this month will be by far the highest-paying digital sports competition yet, with a prize pool currently sitting at $10,466,388. It’ll also be the most confusing digital sports competition. What a weird game Dota is. But the pageantry and big numbers will surely lure in the curious and confused, so Valve are planning a special commentary stream aimed at newcomers.

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Dota 2 and the International turned my Dotachums into schoolchildren last year. “Dendi. Have you got Dendi? I need Dendi,” would come the Steam messages desperately seeking a picture of the Ukranian player’s face for TI3’s Compendium, a sort of Panini World Cup sticker album for Dota. “I’ll swap you ixmike88 and ChuaN for Dendi!” Valve launched this year’s new Compendium on Friday and it looks like it’ll be ruddy huge, as sales have added over $2 million to The International 2014’s prize pool.